The Cinder Crack

We work at a site that has an amazing crack over the top of it. Normally, it is a little farthur to the west, making it very difficult to reach out site - as the crack was up to 9m across when we first got here. Too big. Now it has largely filled in but remains a place where the seals breathe and teach baby seals to swim.

Pretty much anywhere we work, the crack is in the background. Here you can see the dense anemone bed in the foreground and the crack in the back. It also lights the way so we don't need to use as many lights to see when we are underwater.

The crack is also over a strange ripply shape section of microbial mat. This isn't how we normally see it, but again adds to both our understanding (and questions) about what is leading to the release of methane from the seafloor. Those little white dots are not sediment in the water or phytoplankton, but small pteropods that are incredibly abundant this year.